The Opulent Society
by Mee-Yon
Summary: Yoon Hwa Young, because of her high academic achievements has the privilege of attending Shinhwa academy under a full scholarship, though these days, the only thing new she's learning so far is how to survive in a world of manipulation, greed, and envy.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**- The Three Beauties in the Palace

* * *

"Why is this school so big?"

Rays of sunlight filtered through elongated windows, reflecting against the cold marble flooring, almost resembling ice. Footsteps echoed through the seemingly endless hallways as a young girl made her way up a mountain of stairs, her small figure stopping the moment she reached the top as if to catch her breath. She was gripping to the railing tightly and taking in mouthfuls of air, her head hanging forward so that her bangs and her long black hair covered her face.

"Maybe I shouldn't ignore mother when she told me I needed to get into shape," Hwa Young mumbled to herself as she combed a hand through her hair, pushing it away from her face. "If I can barely make it up these stairs now, how am I going to manage a full week of school without dying of exhaustion?" she muttered, her eyes scanning through the area, examining the lockers and closed doors. She skimmed the gold marked numbers on the doors for a moment before pulling out a folded up pamphlet from her blazer pocket, opening it up to a map. "Is this a school or a palace?" she exclaimed to herself, her eyes wide as she stared blankly at the piece of paper.

"Are you lost?" a female voice asked from down the hall as three sets of heels clicked towards her direction, coming from the expensive glossy pumps of three girls, each adorn in silk covered headbands and colorful stockings. Like mirror images, each girl had her arms crossed over her chest and assumed a position that would surround her like a pack of wolves around a lamb, looking her over as if to inspect whether or not the girl had any dirt on her.

"Actually, yes," Hwa Young replied quietly, her hands hanging loosely at her sides. "I'm looking for room 415-A," she stated, feeling the strong discomfort push down onto her chest as they continued to eye her, feeling their stares probing at her like dissection tools. "I have a history class there. My name is Yoon Hwa Young," she introduced politely, though instincts told her that none of these girls were here to make friends or pleasantries.

"Oh my god," rang loud though the area in heavily accented English, the girl of which the words came from giving her a look of minor interest. "You must be that academic scholarship student then," she stated rather than asked, narrowing her eyes and leaning forward to inspect her facial features and neck. "The whole school has been talking about you, you know. A commoner girl managing to score top marks in the entrance exam; you must be pretty brainy to pull that off. Your skin's pretty clear too for someone who probably uses cheap drugstore products."

She felt the muscles beneath her eye twitch. "What?" she asked plainly, watching as the girls share gazes and began laughing slightly, as if finding her bewilderment amusing.

"If you're looking for room 415-A, you're on a completely wrong floor," another girl spoke up as she twirled a beaded decorative pen along the curls of her side-ponytail, raising her eyebrow at Hwa Young as if it was obvious news to her. "Go down two floors, through a hallway of windows, and you should find it down the first set of stairs you see," she stated simply with a slight smirk curved over her lightly glossed lips, watching as the new girl let out a sigh and turned towards the staircase once more. "There's also an elevator to your left," she sneered before her and her friends turned their heels towards Hwa Young and strutted off as quickly as they had come.

"Thank you!" she called after them quickly before rushing off in the direction as instructed, the young girl soon finding herself pushing the lit buttons to a set of chrome elevator doors. "Well, at least they were helpful," she muttered to herself as she rubbed the back of her neck, stepping into the compartment as the automatic doors slid open for her. As she pressed the button to the correct floor, she began to wonder if the rest of the student population would have the same sort of attitude as the three girls she had bumped into moments ago. If so, she already began to dread how making friends at a school like this would be like, or if she could even manage finding some sort of social companionship in a place like this. 'Do I even want to bother?' she thought to herself quietly as she looked up at the ceiling anxiously, bouncing on the balls of her feet. From the looks of things, she really didn't have much in common with these people. What would she possibly talk about with them?

"Hello is a good start," she murmured quietly, hurrying out of the elevator once it hit her destination, then groaned quietly. She should concentrate more on her studies than making friends, anyways. After all, her mother did tell her to work hard throughout high school, though her mother's intentions weren't as wholesome as most. While some mothers told their children to do well for a successful future, her mother was the one who told her to do well because she didn't have the wealth to take care of her if she didn't. Her mother really wasn't a bad person; she just saw things in a different point of view.

From following the previous girl's instructions to the best of her ability, she soon found herself standing in front of an open doorway where a small set of spiraling stairs ran. She poked her head through the entrance as if to try and make out what was at the other end, but darkness and the fact she had forgotten to put in her contact lenses that morning prevented her from doing such. "What an unusual place to put a classroom," she muttered quietly before descending down the stairs, soon regretting said action as she came to the image of what seemed to resemble an entertainment room, stocked with a big-screen television set, an open bar, and a pool table.

Well this definitely wasn't a classroom, so either her bad sense of direction kicked in, or those three girls were actually playing a rather mean prank on her. She noticed a small group of boys who weren't in uniform positioned at various areas of the room, seemingly too busy with their lounging about to notice her presence. She turned around and moved to silently tip-toe up the stairs with a small sigh, hoping that her exit would be unnoticed. 'I guess there are bullies everywhere,' she thought to herself, biting her lower lip as she tried her hardest not to make a sound. She was then stopped at her tracks, wincing slightly at a raised voice from behind her.

"What are you doing here?" one of the boys called out, causing her to stiffen and wince. He raised his eyebrow at her as the girl awkwardly and hesitantly turned her head to face her addresser, his fingers tapping impatiently as if every second without an answer irritated him. He appeared to be a tall curly haired boy dressed in a casual suit, sitting back on the black leather couch with a highly aggravated look plastered over his face.

"I'm really sorry, I lost my way and I think someone gave me the wrong directions," she said quickly, bowing her head with formal haste before fleeing up the set of stairs, her legs carrying her across the marble hallway as fast as humanly possibly. Admittedly, it had been rude of her to scamper off in such a sudden fashion, but she hadn't planned on waiting for his approval of her response. She was already late for her first class as it was, and she didn't have the time nor desire to get into any confrontations with any more students.

"Why was this school so big?"


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two: Making Enemies with the Almighty

The smell of carefully prepared food wafted through the air of the cafeteria while the buzzing of teenage conversation sprung from every corner and table in the room, all conversation limited to boastful chit chat about who went where for vacation, the new exotic vehicles that were bought, and the designer handbags that were received from parents. Dialogue exchange, unsurprisingly, didn't seem to surpass anything but the best that money could buy. It was an atmosphere that seemed to fit better with a five-star restaurant rather than a dining area for some high school students, but one can't really expect any less from a facility that provides services for the sons and daughters of South Korean wealth.

As for Yoon Hwa Young, she was quietly sitting at a table in the far end of the room, alone, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible as she opened her lunch box to the lunch that she had packed the previous night before. Her second day at Shinhwa academy, and already she was beginning to regret working so hard for the scholarship. If she had known that the famous academy known for educating the brilliant leaders of tomorrow was really just providing a hangout area for a bunch of rich kids, she would have purposefully circled 'b' on all of the answers on the exam.

"Too late to turn back now," she muttered quietly to herself as she popped a small roll of egg into her mouth, chewing it slowly as she ran the fingers of her free hand over the smooth surface of her lunchbox lid. Her mother would never allow it. Her thoughts were then suddenly interrupted as the familiar clicking of heels against hardwood flooring began approaching her, causing a low hum of annoyance to escape from he throat. "Can I help you?"

"Is that a way to talk to us after we so graciously helped you out yesterday?"

"Helped me out?" she asked with her brows raised to feigned astonishment, turning her attention to the familiar trio of girls that had stood before her table with their arms crossed and hips to the side. "You purposely gave me the wrong directions."

"Are you just mad because the F4 gave you a hard time for trespassing into their personal lounge?" one of the girls asked as she leaned forward slightly with her hands moving to her hips, a thinly shaped eyebrow raised in inquiry. "Just be happy you haven't been served a red card _yet_."

She stared at them dryly or a few seconds before blinking, her head slowly tilting to the side as she tried to process what was being said to her. Was 'F4' suppose to be some ridiculous slang for something she never got the memo about, or were these girls just completely delusional? "What?" she asked dryly with a raised eyebrow, watching as they gave her a look of confusion.

Before the trio could even open their mouths to respond to her, a sudden outburst of squealing and gasps from countless other girls in the room became audible, a good portion of them rising from their seats and making their way to surround the entrance of the lunch room excitedly. Almost like the scene to a Hollywood red carpet, the room became a disorderly sea of chanting and devoted screaming, and the three girls who were last seen looming over her small table had soon disappeared into the crowd without another word.

"What is this?" she muttered to herself, her expression becoming a mix of both perplexity and horror, her lips parting slightly as she watched the flock of students part at the centre to make walking space for a small group of boys to saunter through. "You've got to be kidding me," she then whispered quietly to herself as a tall boy with curly hair seemed to scan his eyes around the room for a moment before his gaze was glued upon hers. It was at that moment before her eyes flickered with recognition. Maybe it was because it was an incident that only happened yesterday, or because she didn't know a man who hated himself so much that he would get himself a perm, but she was quite sure that they were the boys that she had walked in on the other day.

"You," the curly-haired boy then called out as he directed himself to her direction, his manner of walking exuding confidence; or maybe it was arrogance. He stopped before her humble table and crossed his arms over his chest, an eyebrow arched as his lips pursed. "You're the girl who barged into our lounge the other day, aren't you?" he asked, his words demanding an answer from the small girl.

"What of it?" she asked stiffly, not sure what to make of the situation.

The corner of his lips curved into a very thin and faint smile as a hint of laughter vibrated from his throat. "Consider the gods smiling down on you today, little girl, because today, I am feeling extremely forgiving," he called out, almost as if to make sure that everyone in the room was able to hear him. "I was thinking of punishing you for trespassing like that but it has been brought to my attention that you're that new scholarship student that everyone has been talking about. Since you are new, and clearly don't know any better, the almighty Goo Jun Pyo chooses to forgive you for your ignorance." With his words, came clapping from the students that crowded around to witness the scene before them, while his male companions wore fairly amused faces.

"I'm sorry, hold on a minute," Hwa Young called out in the middle of the applause, slowly rising from her seat with her arms hanging at her sides. "This 'almighty Goo Jun Pyo' is suppose to be you, right?"

He nodded.

"And you're forgiving me for accidentally walking into the wrong room?"

He nodded once more, blinking.

"No thank you, then," she chirped, tilting her head to the side as she smiled sarcastically.

"What do you mean 'no thank you'?" he asked as he began to glare at her.

"I mean that I will not be requiring your forgiveness, because I am confident that I have done nothing wrong," she crossed her arms as she raised an eyebrow at him, her words causing various others in the room to gasp in shock.

Jun Pyo stood there, staring at her disbelievingly as he suddenly went slack jawed, one of his friends chuckling slightly at her response. "You," he muttered as he pointed a threatening finger at her, his eyes narrowing while his lips scrunched in distaste. "Are going to regret you ever said that."

She rolled her eyes as she walked around the table so she was standing directly in front of him. "Why? Because you're probably going spend the majority of the next two days plotting against me?"

"I…"

"Let me guess," she began, feigning a look of excitement. "You plan to have me bullied and harassed for a couple of days with the hopes that I should reach my breaking point and crumble to my knees in despair. You then expect me to beg for forgiveness," she stated more than suggested, picking up her bag and slinging it over her shoulder before closing up her lunch box, looking quite casual as she spoke. She glanced back up at him once again with the small box perched in her hands, raising an eyebrow at his confused expression. "For you information, I'm quite use to people like you, and your threats mean nothing to me," she said before turning away and started for the door with the intent to find a new place to eat her lunch, pushing past a few speechless followers as she passed by.

As she was making her way down the hall, she suddenly heard a loud masculine cry erupting from the lunchroom behind her, which made her stop in her tracks for a moment. She shook her head slowly before continuing on her way.


End file.
